Thomas, I'm responding to your questions, but I'm actually directing my response to Branden Robinson, since I don't know your position on his DFSG-interpretation proposal.
Branden, if the FSF's four freedoms are the consitution to DFSG's case law, they have a lot in common with the US constitution, in that they don't explicitly guarantee a right to privacy. So, see below. On Mon, 2003-03-10 at 15:17, Thomas Bushnell-san wrote: > > That's great, Thomas, but you're missing the point. You can say > > "it's about privacy, it's about the freedom to keep things private, > > it's about not fundamental rights" 'til you're blue in the face, and > > even though every word of it's completely true, it's *not relevant*. We > > don't guarantee every freedom we can, we guarantee the one's that are > > important and useful. > > The point is that it is about *freedom*. You are saying that this > restriction is ok. Why then is not a restriction "this software > cannot be used by bigots" not OK? Why should we prohibit that > restriction in free software? Because the four freedoms do talk about freedom to use the software, but don't say anthing about the freedom to *not* disclose source code under certain conditions. > I'm saying "privacy is an aspect of freedom, and so we should make > room for it." Interestingly, neither the FSF's four freedoms, nor FDR's four freedoms (wink) include privacy. -- -Dave Turner Stalk Me: 617 441 0668 "On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock." -Thomas Jefferson